ZZ Ward to bring her ‘dirty shine’ to Detroit

She’s got the sound and look of a star — and one of the coolest names ever: ZZ Ward.

ZZ Ward. Photo courtesy Big Hassle Media

The girl can sing, play piano and guitar, and man, can she rock a hat.

“I started wearing the hat when I was a little kid when I would sing the blues, just because I grew up listening to so many blues artists like Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters,” Ward said. “It’s my way of remembering what inspired me in the first place, so it’s my way of paying homage to the blues.”

Born in 1986, Zsuzsanna, ZZ for short, grew up in Roseburg, Ore., in a house with two Hammond B3 organs, a dad who played in a blues band and two older brothers who liked hip-hop.

“I listened to a lot of really strong female vocalists — Etta James, Big Mama Thornton, Tina Turner,” Ward recalled. “I also loved singer-songwriters like David Bowie and Tom Petty and Bob Dylan and artists that had a voice through their song and identity through their writing. That was always really special to me and something I really wanted to be able to do with my own music.”

Her 2012 debut, “Til the Casket Drops,” includes the ultra-catchy hit “Put the Gun Down” and the bouncy follow-up “365 Days.”

“The writing process for me, honestly, with this record it was about the ups and downs of a relationship I was in and just that sometimes it’s not always this perfect love story or that wouldn’t be any fun. It’s a frickin’ roller coaster ride of passion and heartbreak sometimes and then the love that comes out of it,” Ward said during a call from the road en route to a show in Arizona.

“I think that’s what I can really give to people and what I grew up enjoying about music is sincerity and authenticity and real stories and real emotion. And I think because I grew up admiring that so much, I’m just able to kind of convey that, and that’s what this record is about.”

Her powerful voice has been compared to Adele, Amy Winehouse and Aretha Franklin. She’s received rave reviews from Rolling Stone, NPR and The New York Times.

“I never really expected people to like [my music] as much as they have,” she said. “The publications and all the support from so many outlets is incredibly wonderful, but at the end of the day, the fans liking the music is the most important thing to me.”

She calls her mix of blues, rock, soul and hip-hop “dirty shine.”

“‘Dirty shine,’ to me, it means embracing your authentic self, and I hope that my fans can do that through listening to my record, whatever they want to embrace about themselves,” the singer-songwriter said. “For me, it was just really kind of jumping into a record and not caring about what people were going to think; it was just really making music that I love.”

Ward will bring her Down & Dirty Shine Tour to Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit, on Oct. 6. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Alpha Rev and James Bay will open. Tickets are $15.75.

The Spinners to turn up at Hollywood Casino

“We recorded ‘It’s a Shame’ at Motown [Records]; Stevie Wonder co-wrote it and produced it,” recalled Henry Fambrough. “Would you believe that song laid around almost two years before they released it? It took Stevie to go put pressure on Motown to get them to release it. And they released it and it became an instant hit.”

That was 1970, when the group’s contract with the Detroit label ran out.

“We were on tour with Aretha and we were good friends, and we still are good friends, and she told us, ‘I know you guys are between record companies, but I’m on Atlantic [Records] and they are a very good company to me, so I think you should look into it; it’s my recommendation.’ And we did, and we signed with them,” Fambrough said.

Then came producer Thom Bell.

“He remembered us from 1961 when ‘That’s What Girls Are Made For’ came out,” Fambrough said during a call from his home in Troy, Mich. “He said he remembered our sound and that’s why he wanted to work with us.”

“[Bell] said, ‘I’m going back to Philly, and I’m going to have my writers write for your sound,’ ” Fambrough said. “He said, ‘I think within a year or so, you guys are going to be the No. 1 group in the country.’

“After being at Motown for all that time, we just looked at each other and said, ‘Yeah, sure, Thom,’” Fambrough said and laughed.

But Bell and the writers struck gold. “When Thom came back, the first songs he played for us were ‘Could It Be I’m Falling in Love,’ ‘I’ll Be Around,’ ‘How Could I Let You Get Away’ and ‘Just You and Me Baby.’ And out of those four songs, three of them were hits off of our first album that was released,” Fambrough said.

Known for soulful harmonies, snappy matching suits and smooth moves, The Spinners had a string of hits, including “The Rubberband Man,” “One of Kind (Love Affair),” “They Just Can’t Stop It (Games People Play)” and “Working My Way Back to You.” The R&B group and Dionne Warwick reached No. 1 with “Then Came You.”

Fambrough is the only surviving original member.

“We lost Pervis and Billy in ’08 and ’07,” the singer said. “Bobbie left the road back in September, and we just kept working with the four guys. In fact, we’re still working with the four guys.”

Smith died in March at age 76. Jackson died of cancer in 2008, and Henderson died due to complications of diabetes in 2007.

“You keep going, you know, you keep going,” Fambrough said. “We try to find someone that has the same values and the same goals that we have.”

“The songs that we did then, they’re so good now because they’re about love and happiness,” Fambrough said. “We have people coming to see our concert today and they’re introducing our music to their grandkids because the music is still good and you can listen to it without cringing.”

Concert to benefit musician Claude Black

University of Toledo Jazz is banding together to play a benefit concert for local legend, jazz pianist Claude Black.

Black, who has been with UT for about four years, was hospitalized before Christmas because of failing kidneys, high blood pressure and the return of cancer. The Jan. 31 concert’s proceeds will go toward covering Black’s medical bills.

UT Jazz, a group for the UT jazz community and its supporters, hopes to raise “as much as possible. I know [Black’s] hurting. He has quite a few bills that go quite a ways back,” said Gunnar Mossblad, director of jazz studies at UT.

“I feel very humbled that [UT Jazz] would do something like that. That’s pretty special. I think it’s a wonderful thing,” Black said of the department’s decision to play a benefit concert.

Black, a Detroit native, began his career as a teenager. He played at the legendary Baker’s Keyboard Lounge in Detroit as the pianist five days a week and at Murphy’s Place in Toledo.

“He’s been a staple in the greater Detroit/Toledo area for his whole life practically,” Mossblad said.

The jazz pianist specializes in bebop.

“It was a particular form of music and it took a particular mind to catch on it and Claude was the bebop player in the Detroit area,” said renowned jazz singer and lyricist Jon Hendricks, Black’s longtime friend and colleague.

Black went on to play with Aretha Franklin in the 1960s when she joined Martin Luther King, Jr. in the civil rights movement.

“It was really great, nice, excellent,” Black said of playing with Franklin, getting to talk to King and meeting Harry Belafonte, who also toured with King and Franklin.

Black, who is on hiatus from teaching, counts playing during that time as a career highlight. He also names teaching at UT as another career peak.

“Coming to UT has been one of the highlights of my career. I now can share my experiences with the students,” he said.

The faculty and students love him, too. “Claude is probably one of the kindest, most giving people I’ve ever met,” Mossblad said. “We lovingly joke that we know when he’s in the building, because we always recognize his warm-up exercises on the piano.”

Black was upgraded to rehabilitation in mid January and is slated to begin radiation treatments soon. “It seems like I’m doing a little better each day,” Black said.

Hendricks and Mossblad plan to play at the benefit concert, in addition to Jeff Halsey, Ron Brooks and George Davidson. Mossblad said concert selections and other artists are being finalized.

Tickets are $3 for students and seniors and $5 for general admission; additional donations are welcome. The concert is 8 p.m. Jan. 31 at in the UT Center of Performing Arts’ Recital Hall. Donations can also be mailed to Gunnar Mossblad at 2801 W. Bancroft St., MS 605, Toledo 43606.

Some may know her as Bob B. Soxx, who, with The Blue Jeans, hit the charts in the early 1960s with “Not Too Young to Get Married,” “Why Do Lovers Break Each Others Hearts?” and “My Heart Beat a Little Faster.”

Most would recognize her as Trish Murtaugh, Danny Glover’s wife in the “Lethal Weapon” movies.

She is Darlene Love, the singer who launched Phil Spector’s “Wall of Sound” in 1962 with the No. 1 song, “He’s a Rebel” by The Crystals.

On March 14, the lady with the legendary voice who remained anonymous for years and won a law suit against Spector for royalties will score her biggest victory: induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Darlene Love

“I was on my way to Atlantic City to a job. I was in a limousine outside my house that was picking up me and my husband,” Love said of receiving the call with the big news. “I was silent for a few seconds and then I just let out this scream and then I thought I had to shut it or the driver might think my husband is back here killing me.”

She laughed at her joke during the call from Los Angeles and then said, “I think I’m on a celebrating moment all by myself right now,” and the booming laughter returned. “Hopefully, when they ask me to sing, I can calm down a little bit.”

Love’s elation was audible as she talked about performing at the ceremony and items she’s given to the Rock Hall.

“I sent them some things that I’ve had in my closet for a long time that I put aside for maybe one day — a couple of short sequin dresses that I used to wear on ‘Shindig’ (a music variety show that aired from 1964 to 1966 and featured The Blossoms) and pictures from years ago,” she said.

And yes, she will acknowledge Spector, despite the broken promises and debts owed to her.

“I have to say something about him; it’ll be something about appreciation because he’s Phil Spector and without him and those songs 40 years ago, I wouldn’t have a career today,” Love said.

“I have so much respect for [Spector] in the early days because I knew exactly what he wanted and he knew what he wanted out of me, and I was able to give him all of that,” she said. “And the Wall of Sound, that was amazing because we had some of the greatest musicians in the world to work with.”

Released last month, “The Very Best of Darlene Love” showcases Spector’s star vocalist from the girl groups. The 17 tracks are by The Blossoms, Bob B. Soxx and The Blue Jeans, The Crystals and Love. Hits include “Wait Til’ My Bobby Gets Home” and “(Today I Met) The Boy I’m Gonna Marry.”

The collection includes a special song for the 69-year-old.

“Out of all the stuff I recorded back in the ’60s, one of my favorites was called ‘Quiet Guy,’ one of the songs Phil decided not to put on an album, but it’s still one of my favorite songs today.”

She’s become a favorite of David Letterman, appearing during the holidays to sing “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home),” one of her trademark numbers that appeared on 1963’s classic “A Christmas Gift for You From Philles Records.”

“Because of the show at the Bottom Line in New York City, ‘Leader of the Pack,’ Paul Shaffer was playing Phil Spector, and David Letterman came to one of our shows,” Love explained. “And on his show one night, he said, ‘Paul, that’s the greatest Christmas song I’ve ever heard. We need to get her on our show.’ And this will be the 25th year I’ll be singing that one song on David’s show.”

Love as a Crystal.

Fans can see her perform that classic and more on “Darlene Love: The Concert of Love,” which airs this month on PBS.

“It was something I always wanted to do, something that my fans wanted me to do,” she said of the live concert, which was released on CD and DVD last year. “It was a great night with great lighting, great sound, great orchestra to do all the songs that I wanted to do that were mine.”

Many hail Love’s voice as one of the greatest in rock. Take The New York Times: “Darlene Love’s thunderbolt voice is as embedded in the history of rock ‘n’ roll as Eric Clapton’s guitar or Bob Dylan’s lyrics.”

“Our music was four tracks and a vocal — mono,” she said. “And today they have over 200 tracks so whether they can sing or not they can make them sound fantastic. Back in those days, you had to have it or you didn’t have it.”

Love, whose last name was Wright until Spector suggested the change, definitely has it. But there was a time when it started slipping away. The singing gigs were few and a divorce left her nearly destitute in the late 1970s. She wrote about working as a maid and taking a part-time job at a dry cleaners to pay bills and care for her sons in her 1998 book, “My Name Is Love: The Darlene Love Story.”

“I always had the desire to become a great singer, not to become a great star but to become a great singer, and anytime I got knocked back, I just looked at that as a hurdle that I had to get over,” she said of the difficult time.

Her story, complete with amazing comeback, is being made into a movie.

“It’ll be awhile because it takes a lot of money and it’s a low-budget film and that’s anywhere from $5 to $20 million,” she said and laughed. “We’re right in the middle now of the screenplay. We did a table read so myself and the writer could really hear how the script sounded.”

The film is based on her book, which chronicles her turbulent relationship with Spector, her love affair with Bill Medley of the Righteous Brothers, working with Presley on his 1968 comeback concert in Las Vegas, and how she was rediscovered while singing on a cruise ship.

Through it all, Love was optimistic.

“I learned at a young age not to hold anything against anybody no matter what they did to me. I learned not to complain or mumble or grumble about anything because it never did me any good,” she said. “And I had such a spiritual faith to get me through situations I had to get through. I got to where I am today by not holding grudges, not holding any hatred in my heart for someone that did me wrong.